Sifting and bolting



M S. BASSETT.

Sifting and Belting Flour. &c. No. 11,822. Patented Oct. 24, 1854.

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UNITED STATES MARK S. BASSETT, OF WILMINGTON, DELAWARE.

SIF'I'ING AND BOLTING.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 11,822, dated October 24, 1854.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, l.\/IARK S. BASSETT, of the city of Wilmington, in the county of New Castle and State of Delaware, have invented a new and useful Improvement for Sifting and Reducing the Lumps in Flour and other Siftable Substances; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,

clear, and eXact description of the same, refdious and unpleasant operation, requiring a I secondary resort to pounders or crushers to reduce the lumps. Where large quantities are to be sifted the mill is resorted to, where it is first ground over, as it is termed, then elevated and bolted. To facilitate this labor and avoid a complication of machinery, I have contrived a feeder, distributer, and vibrator in connection with an ordinary sieve; may be used by hand or power. It may be arranged in a hopper or spout leading to a bolt in place of the ordinary shoe for the purpose of regularly feeding and relieving said bolt from the clots and lumps.

To make my improvement I take a common hand sieve or its equivalent, a vertical middle section of which is shown in Fig. 1 having a deep upper band or hoop L forming a hopper or receiver to sieve M, although other forms may be used for the framework of the sieve. In and across said hopper I firmly fasten two bars A, A. Said bars should be of sufficient distance apart to form two distinct bearings through which I pass a shaft B firmly connecting the lower end thereof to a transverse bar C, Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 represents the feeder, distributor, and vibrator; is made circular of coarser web than the sieve, having a metal margin or rim made flat and slightly rough underneath. The use of said rim is to confine the web Gr within its circle, E, E, and also to form a bearing when in contact with the sieve. The cross bar C is slightly arched upward and firmly riveted at each end to the rim E. Said bar has two thumb screws F, F, Figs. 1 and 2, passing through it, one on each side of the shaft and connecting with the web directly under them by a swivel plate. Their use is to adjust the said web so that it shall not come in contact with the sieve or bolting disk except at its margin or bearings, thereby preventing excess of friction, and also to form a space between said distributer and sieve sufiicient for the particles of siftable matter to circulate freely from the center of the sieves disk toward the periphery, without grinding or forcing them into the meshes. This arrangementwill appear more obvious when taken into consideration that the particles too coarse to pass the lower sieve and being confined by the mass within the meshes of the distributer and against the sieve would have no means of escape, hence the necessity of a slight separation as above described.

Fig. 3 is the lower hoop with the web attached of an ordinary hand sieve, letter M, Fig. 1. Around the margin of saidsieve disk and within the hoop is a metal rim D, D made fiat and corresponding with one in Fig. 2, letters E, E, Fig. 2, 1s firmly fastened to the shaft B, and passed through the two bars A, A, across the hopper, Fig. l, centralizing Fig. 2 directly over the sieve M, Figs. 1 and 8, and in contact at the corpesponding bearings E, E, and D, D, Figs.

First operation: The riddle rotating over and in contact with the sieve partially relieves said sieve from the mass of siftable matter contained in the hopper above it, gradually grating said mass through the meshes, feeding and reducing the lumps; second, a centrifugal motion produced by the action of the square meshes on the particles while passing through them, this action being centrifugal so far as the meshes alone are concerned; the general action is outward or toward the periphery or distributing; third, the vibration produced by a slight roughness at the bearings together with the constant changing of the particles adjacent to and between the sieves toward the periphery effects an open current for the finer particles to pass the sieve and without a probability of clogging or choking.

The machine above described is only claimed as animprovement upon one for which I obtained a patent, dated June 20th,

WVhat I do claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is- The riddle as arranged and described in Fig. 2, in connection With a shaft and bearings centralizing said riddle so as 'to rotate against an ordinary flat sieve disk at its margin as a feeder, distributer, and vibrator,

combined for the uses and purposes herein 15 set forth.

MARK S. BASSETT. Witnesses:

STEPHEN M. STAPLES, ANDREW MOCULLOUGH; 

